On stormwater management master plans: comparing developed and developing cities

Floods are natural and seasonal phenomena playing a crucial environmental role, but in constructed environments they bring many types of losses. This work analyses the stormwater management master plan (SWMP) in developed and developing cities. Using content analysis, three SWMPs were compared: Joinville - SC and Porto Alegre - RS, in Brazil, and the plan and Maia city, in Portugal. NVivo version 11 software was used. Nodes were categorized and results are presented. Content analysis allowed comparative socio-hydrology by studying different coupled human-water systems across different locations. SWMPs are situated at different levels of planning with respect to water resources management: strategic and operational levels converge on the main objective, tracing different strategies related to conceptual and regulatory points of view. The SWMP is a document whose scope extends beyond mapping technical needs; it involves an element of public planning and administration to avoid the loss of lives and economics, as well as to increase resilience, and it is an essential document for urban water governance.